


Pinned

by rispacooper



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Crossdressing, F/M, M/M, Prostitution, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is not a pleasant feeling, but not one James can help, though he has tried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pinned

**Author's Note:**

> For Raise_the_Dead's little [Norrington love fest](http://raise-the-dead.livejournal.com/60656.html). Prompt: lace, fan.

Elizabeth Swann is slender and strong and spirited, with smooth skin almost gold in colour. There is a nobility in her undiminished by her wildness, something that tilts her head up imperiously even as something unfulfilled darkens her eyes. James thinks it a hunger and it speaks to him in ways he does not like to think of, as if she longs for something no one can give her, something she desires to take, and cannot.

It is something he would talk to her about, if he could, if the rules of time and place allowed, but they don’t so he holds silent, and watches her energetic strides in long skirts of lace, studies her every graceful, impatient gesture and the curve of the inside of her wrist, and the tight fists she makes when a man’s rage is not allowed and she must remain docile and feminine.

He wonders at the nature of his obsession some nights, alone in the dark, as ever, though he has already watched her for years now, unable to speak after witnessing her temper, breathless to see her bound into a dress, the skin of her neck already tanned, golden and smooth and flat as the exposed flesh above her décolleté.

Elizabeth Swann has a man’s nature to suit her strong, slender body with its smooth, undisturbed lines, and James thinks it is when she is most constrained, most wrapped and held by silk and whalebone and lace and a hundred tiny pins, that he finds her most at odds with herself…and the most beautiful.

It is not a pleasant feeling, but not one he can help, though he has tried. If she ever grants him her hand, he will do right by her, be an honorable husband and a good man, allow her many freedoms. But the itch to see her restless and trapped, fierce and soft, only grows stronger by the day, until he is not sure if it is because he wishes her to break free and finally take what she wants, or because he hopes she will not, and he can have more time to observe her frustrated desires.

In truth, James has never thought of any woman as much as he thinks of Elizabeth Swann, and never in such a way, and it has never bothered him, never once occurred to him that he ought to worry, until he finds his own hands curled into fists at his sides and feeling rushes madly through his veins and realizes, as he stares, as he _stares_ at the figure draped over a balcony above him, the haughty, slender, beautiful figure already disappearing into the house with one last look over a smooth brown shoulder bedecked in frothy white lace.

Though he pretends he doesn’t, because James Norrington is not an unreasonable or a cruel man, James knows what that building is, who lives there, who works there, who visits. It had been known to him as molly house for some time, even back when he had been merely a lieutenant, though he had never dared step foot inside.

There were worse crimes, robbery and rape and pillage, for example, and otherwise loyal and brave men should not be punished for their tastes, or so he’d always believed. But such places were not for him. They were for men with unnatural desires, desires for other men and longings to put on skirts and act a woman, timid and weak, and James did not wish for weak, never had.

But that, and his mind hesitates over the word, though it undeniable, that _boy_ who visits that house, who perhaps works there, is Elizabeth-fierce for all that he is still. His dark eyes are raised and scornful on James as he passes each day, passes when he has no need to, but the feathers of his fan sweep softly through the air without pause. There is a wig, rich black curls pinned painfully to his head when his own hair must be the same midnight shade. His chest is flat for all that it is displayed above stiff silk.

James watches, until the fan closes with a snap and the fingers clutching it are white-knuckled, and the chin lifts with an imperious challenge, and then he thinks of Elizabeth, and waits until the night, when he is alone, as ever, before he enters the house.


End file.
